Dear Jose
You asked me several interesting and penetrating questions and I am
happy to respond to the best of my ability in this post but I regret I am
unable to answer all of your many questions in one go.
I am also delighted that, my article: In The Portuguese Vortex will be
resurrected for your website even though it is now dated.
Kindly note however, that a draft version of the article had appeared, which
was not sent by me to Goanet, but drawn from the Herald
Newspaper by somebody unknown. I will therefore be keen to let you have the
correct version which I could easily extract from my computer when you
require it.
I do stand by every word I wrote then but were I to update the article, I
would
include more recent information that, as Portugal has an illiteracy rate of
some ten per cent among the indigenous Portuguese today, many have to travel
out of Portugal to undertake low level work to places like Germany and even
Canada. In the UK, such
people now work at cockle pickers on the infamous and treacherous bay where
many
Chinese illegals died two years ago. They are also engaged in other casual
manual work that, sadly, is relatively dangerous, lacks union protection,
and they work at the mercy of
gangmasters in the twilight world of unregulated cheap labour. In brief, as
a consequence of the Vortex Article, I collected a lot of information which
would further strengthen my claims about powerless
exploited indigenous Portuguese labour in the UK among many other groups.
I'd like to make one additional point re The Portuguese Vortex. I do believe
that you misread the central issue in the article. It was not
anti-Portuguese as such. Rather, it was a trenchant critique of those Goans
in Goa and elsewhere (and particularly the self-styled caste elite of whom
some have illusions of being "high born"), who unwarrantedly hold the
Portuguese and things Portuguese on a pedestal today.
But I think we need to get to the crux of the issue about the Portuguese in
Goa in this discussion between us. As I cannot deal with all your related
questions in one go, I have a preference to deal with one substantive issue
at a time and your specific question "Are you saying that the Portuguese
arrival and eventual colonisation was not a better alternative than the
Turkish/Moghal control of Goa?" I am afraid we can never know the answer but
can only speculate. I therefore provide you my take on the issue and
hopefully, you will be kind enough to let me know where you
disagree with me through this helpful medium. I must also thank you for the
references you provided.
In my own case, in order to illustrate where I come from intellectually,
there are at least three influences that provide me a view and make me the
kind of person I am, in responding about the Portuguese in Goa.
Firstly, in terms of an existentialist
underpinning, I very much enjoyed, a quiet radical political home
environment where I grew up in Kenya. My father was absolutely clear that he
was an Indian, with a Portuguese name and faith due to an accident of
history. This rubbed off on me quite significantly. I was also anti British
in the colony of Kenya and had great sympathy for radical anti-colonialists
like Makan Singh and Pio Gama Pinto.
Secondly, there is a point I want to make about education/general knowledge.
I am reasonably well informed about the role and manifestation of power in
society and between nations. Thus, I know about colonial theory and
practice, post-colonial theory, politics and international affairs. In
particular, I have been attracted to readings on the debilating effects of
colonialism on subject peoples.
Thirdly, experientially, I witnessed at first hand, the brutality of the
Portuguese police and soldiers in Goa. In particular, this was when I spent
six months there in 1952/53. I witnessed fellow Goans being viciously
beaten with canes around the police station in Margao. This was not for some
felony or criminal act but because they had objected to one of their number
being hauled roughly off the street for uttering "Jai Hind" within earshot
of a policeman in plain clothes. This event was two years before the more
co-ordinated modern anti-Portuguese movement which really took off in 1954.
In December, 1952, I witnessed Portuguese armed soldiers roughly dispersing
Goan men women and children who had been lining up for hours to see the body
of St Francis Xavier. When I remonstrated, I was viciously assaulted by an
armed beefy Portuguese soldier. In a rage, I uttered that, I would kill him
one day! Fortunately, he did not understand English. Otherwise, I am sure I
would have been locked up at a police station or in a prison for possibly
days if not longer. On reflection however, I now regret not having got to
see the insides of the infamous Aguada prison when it was at its most
punitive.
Yet one more example would be helpful now that I am in full flow! A
prominent Goan from Mombasa, Kenya, had decided to take a vacation by ship
to Goa in the 1950s. However, unknown to him, the Goan Portuguese Consul
from there, reported him to the Goa authorities for supposedly harbouring
pro-India sentiments. Before the ship was able to touch the quay, a police
launch stopped the ship and the gentleman was taken away and locked up to
await a concocted trial. Now, can you image the trauma of this banality for
the man and his family that I knew particularly well in Kenya? I can also
tell you that the man who reported the kindly Goan gentleman to
the Portuguese authorities now lives quietly in Goa today, just in case you
might wish to extract the details from him personally! You would then
understand more fully, Goa's secret police who could arrest people at will
and be relatively unanswerable for their actions. This was not unlike the
Gestapo in Nazi Germany. But then, this is not surprising as Salazar like
Francoof Spain shared strong fascist tendencies.
The examples I have provided above, have left an indelible mark on me about
Portuguese authoritarianism and brutality in the years before liberation in
1961. If you do not believe my examples, please read a very illuminating
book by James Fernandes (1990): In Quest of Freedom (Concept Publishing). I
obtained a copy in Goa last month and read it in one go as I got so absorbed
by the reality and sanity in the presentation. It reminded me so much of the
excellent material in Gramsci's Prison Note Books.
James' book illustrates how someone, quite
young, had idealistically taken a stand and demonstrated, totally peacefully
and openly, for the Portuguese to leave Goa. He paid for this heavily by
being imprisoned for several years.
I regret I did not get a chance to meet with James who lives in Mapusa but
hope to do so at a later date and I hope you may do so too. You could also
meet Lambert Mascarenhas (now 92) in Dona Paula for his animated and vivid
accounts of his altercations with the Portuguese over his legitimate quest
for democracy and the departure of the Portuguese from his homeland in Goa.
Clearly, there must be hundreds of similar examples that could be drawn from
ordinary people in Goa about Portuguese brutality prior to 1962 and
hopefully more of such evidence will be forthcoming in the future.
I am well aware that there are those who feel that Goa has not benefitted
from the departure of the Portuguese, and in particular, are angry about
the corruption in Goa today. However, surely the responsibility to get
things right in democratic Goa lies with the people of Goa themselves as
Mario has so often correctly said on Goanet. Do today's Goans need the
Portuguese, yet again, when those Iberians chose to ignore democracy and
human rights so totally? I will even go so far as to say that I understand
the sentiments of those who bemoan the fact that Goa did not become an
independent nation like Singapore. To them I say that, the historical
circumstances did not allow for such a dream to become a reality but that
there is no harm in dreaming on!
I also need to draw your attention to Ben Antao's novel, Blood and Nemesis
that I had reviewed about a year ago. Indeed, Ben and his wife were
intrigued that I had reviewd the novel in a particularly knowing way unlike
other reviewers. If Ben comes to read this post, he will now get to know how
and why I was able to comprehend the authoritarian and
oppressive Portuguese regime and mentality so accurately as portrayed in his
novel.
The extent to which ordinary people were cowed by the Portuguese had to be
seen and experienced to be believed but please note that notwithstanding
their past brutality, I do
not dislike the Portuguese at all today. This is because they are at last
behaving like civilised people. Indeed, my good Portuguese friends can't
stop apologising to me when I recount my experiences at the hands of their
ilk in
Portuguese Goa. Does this sound at least a bit like the current Pope's
regrets for what his fellow Germans did to the Jews?
Obviously, it is not true that all the Portuguese were as bad as described
above in pre 1961 Goa. Clearly, your student days at the Goa Medical College
were peaceful and sheltered from the harsh reality of Portuguese rule as
described above. However, I sincerely hope you will at least see the other
side of the
coin even though you may not be able to shake off your conviction that the
Portuguese were good for Goa in preference to fellow Indians whether Muslim
or Hindu.
In your view, the Portuguese foreigners were needed to protect the Goans
from their
own Indian people. This is conceivable but highly doubtful and short-sighted
in my view.
Instead, I would speculate that were the Portuguese not around in Goa for
451 years, the British would have incorporated Goa into their Indian Empire,
albeit later, and British democratic tendencies/influences would have
permeated Goa, for better or worse, so as to eventually become part of the
Commonwealth instead of your feared Turkish/ Moghal controlled scenario.
Nevertheless, your dreaded view of Turkisk/Moghal hegemony in India baffles
me. Why on earth do you think Portuguese Catholicism is/was better than
Islam or Hinduism as has existed in sub-continental India?
I want to add further that, I believe that Portuguese hegemony in Goa was
pretty disastrous for us Goans. Goa remained incredibly backward until
1961on virtually every measure of economic and social progress in the last
century. There was minimal state provided schooling, incredibly poor and
limited roads and transport
facilities generally, rickety and dangerous buses, lack of electricity, non
existant sewage works, and piped water etc compared to even relatively small
cities in British India
like Mysore and Jamshedpur which I found useful for comparative purposes.
Pune and Jublepore also come to mind! Above all, despite much alluded
co-existence and peacefulness there was a marked lack of
an economic infrastructure to provide work for people. They were thus forced
to
seek better economic conditions, including us two, in different corners of
the world.The only thing in surplus in Goa was Catholicism which comfortably
co-existed with the evil of caste and continues to do so.
The centrality of European colonialism anywhere was to extract as much as
possible for the metropolitan centres in Europe. Colonialism thus
impoverished places like India so that productivity of manufactured goods
were enhanced in Europe and then sold back to native peoples. The book and
film, Gandhi, illustrates this beautifully using the example of cotton
products and particularly salt production and its distribution and sale in
India itself. India, was economically prosperous until Britain appropriated
her production lines and markets for finished goods to Britain's benefit.
The way colonies, the world over, helped European countries to benefit and
prosper at the expense of the colonies is to be found in many a text and it
is precisely because of this kind of unacceptable exploitation that
international pressures were brought to bear to end modern colonialism
soon after WW2.
Likewise, there are other historical accounts of Portuguese use of force to
subdue helpless Goans e.g Shirodcar P.P. (1999): Goa's Struggle for Freedom.
Also, there is much about the trials of T.B. Cunha, J. I. Loyola and
P.K.Kakodkar to name a few of the many available sources. Clearly, only
someone unaware of these would be able to see some virtue in a pretty
brutal Portuguese colonial
regime. Incidentally, almost four years after I saw much of what I described
above in 1952/53 there was one incident which I simply
must share with you! Portuguese soldiers in three army trucks once stopped
at midday on the main road close to my home. At this point, the younger Goan
women who were around, just vanished in a flash of movement! Fear of the
white 'pacle' sent them to places where they could hide themselves. I
suspected that this action was partly out of fear of rape but it was also a
bit of a theatrical performance for something better to do at the time.
However, I recall two uniformed Portuguese soldiers scouring the homesteads
looking for chickens and eggs to steal. At one point, my grandmother came to
the scene with our big dog on a lead and my mother stood her ground and told
the soldiers to get lost in her best Portuguese. The soldiers then offered
cash for their requirements but this offer was disdainfully rejected and the
soldiers
turned tail! It was a close thing however. Things could have got pretty
nasty on
that day but for the big dog!
By putting the three headings above together, you will note that, I am
ethnically and intellectually an Indian first and formost, with firm Goan
roots, and with a cosmopolitan and
international outlook. My Goaness which incorporates Indianess, contrasts
sharply from many Goans, including some highly educated ones, who when they
say "I am a Goan" effectively distance themselves from being Indian. This is
the most painful legacy of Portuguese rule. Many Catholic Goans have been so
colonised
mentally as to be unclear as to exactly who they are. I have a lot of
hilarious examples to illustrate this point but aspects of this
Portuguese acultrative influence are well examined in Newman R. (2001): Of
Umbrellas, Goddesses and Dreams, Essays on Goan Culture and Society (Other
India Press). I can recommend this book very strongly. I also believe that
many a Goan Catholic will not have been troubled unduly by the thought
proces in which I have engaged as illustrated above. To be fair however,
there is change taking place, especially in Goa/India and many Catholic
Goans increasingly have at least one non-Catholic first name which is
generally Hindu. It is also likely that with India's rapid growth
economically towards world standing, Goa will be mainstreamed even faster
into the bosom of India and that Portuguese Goa will become a distant
memory even on Goanet!
You will recall I am sure, that I have always been very critical about some
of the worst aspects of Indian society and the many social evils therein,
then and now. Thus, sati, caste, dowry demands and dowry deaths, child
marriage, modern slavery, female infanticide and women's disadvantage have
featured critically in my many posts to Goanet.
I have spent more time on this response than I had anticipated and done so
at some speed as I got delayed replying to you. However, please do ask
yourself how the Portuguese would have liked it if the Goans had colonised
Portugal instead so as to protect her from her troublesome neighbour Spain
in earlier years? Portuguese resistance and discomfort about Spanish rule
when Portugal was occupied in modern times is well documented. I only refer
to this just in case you found it useful to find a parallel example where
one might be tempted to say to the Portuguse that, Spanish rule was good
for them. Also do think about the strange situation that, when Spain
occupied
Portugal for many years, there was Portuguese resistance there but that, at
the same time, Portugal coerced and brutalised the Goans thousands of miles
away.
In sum, notwithstanding your considerable 'sorrow' about the Portuguese
departure in 1961, I believe that the best thing that happened to Goa in
more recent times was the expulsion of the Portuguese after 451 years. Goa's
destiny was at last in Goan hands and to be utilised to the best of Goan
ability. I do hope that this opportunity will shine through much more than
it is currently doing.
The human condition is truly contradictory and paradoxical. For me, the
major paradox is that I celebrated when the Portuguese were ousted from Goa
in 1961. Yet, you and some others have expressed nothing but regret about
that event. I nevertheless respect you for your sincerely held position,
but in reciprocity, hope you will respect my position which couldn't be made
more explicit than I have done above. But I have a question for you, it
being my turn to now question you. Please can you tell me what good was done
by Portuguese colonisation of Goa and whether you stand by a comment you
once made on Goanet (which is retrievable) that, the Portuguese ought to
have confined themselves to trading instead of engaging in colonisation.
With best regards
Cornel
----- Original Message -----
From: "jose colaco" <colaco_2 at hotmail.com>
To: <goanet at goanet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 2:02 PM
Subject: [Goanet] RE: Cornel's contention with .... WE ARE ALL GOANS
Dear Cornel,
I am in the process of reviewing your Vortex article wrt the Portuguese in
Goa, as
also the critique which it attracted. We intend to have it on the website as
soon as
we have cleared up up a few 'grey' areas ...but for now .... this is is
response to
the above from you.
You are a well read man. Pray tell us what you believe would have been the
more likely scenario IF not for the Portuguese arrival in Calicut, and more
specifically
the Battle of Diu.
Did Pakistan and (now) Bangladesh become Islamic States by choice?
What about Indonesia ?
Now... please do take the time and explain the contention you have with
Ricardo.
Are you saying that the Portuguese arrival and eventual colonization was NOT
a better alternative than the Turkish/Moghal control of Goa?